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December 15, 2017

18 Bitcoins will Buy the Average American Home

Redfin Says People are Beginning to Bring Cryptocurrency to the
Housing Market

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 15, 2017--
(NASDAQ: RDFN) — Redfin (www.redfin.com),
the next-generation real estate brokerage, has seen cryptocurrency
starting to become part of the discussion with some clients buying
and selling homes over the past three months. Agents in Boston,
Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and several cities in
California said they’ve had conversations with people about using
cryptocurrency as part of their transaction. Currently, Redfin does not
accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

Bitcoin, the first digital currency that works without a bank or
middleman, surged 183.6 percent in the last month, from $5,870.37 per
coin on Nov. 12 to $16,650.01 on Dec. 12, according to Bitstamp data.
Its market cap is more than $293 billion, and while some analysts warn
of a crypto
bubble, others say Bitcoin could eventually compete against the gold
market.

Regardless, cryptocurrency has created fast wealth for investors, and
now some are cashing out and going house hunting.

Carina Isentaeva, a Redfin agent in San Francisco, recently helped a
client write an offer on a luxury home in Silicon Valley that was
contingent on the sale of cryptocurrency. The offer was accepted, but
the buyer ended up backing out when his cryptocurrency didn’t sell.
Isentaeva said she’s confident he will buy when it does.

Jeremy Paul, a Redfin agent in San Diego, also worked with clients who
held Bitcoin. He said his clients cashed out two bitcoins, valued at
$7,435 each, to cover the closing costs on a home in Carlsbad, CA.

And homebuyers aren’t the only ones in the cryptocurrency game. Redfin
found 75 listings nationwide in which the seller mentioned he or she
will accept Bitcoin as payment. The seller of a condo in Miami is
requesting payment in Bitcoin only; it will cost the buyer 33 coins.

One
way to illustrate the unprecedented growth of Bitcoin is to look at
the price of the typical home in bitcoins over the past year. For
example, in January 2016 in San Francisco, the typical home would have
cost a buyer 2,805 bitcoins. Today, the median home in San Francisco is
82 bitcoins.

For buyers who have made a lot of money on the recent surge in
cryptocurrency value, buying a home is a reasonable way to use the
proceeds. For sellers accepting bitcoin, however, it’s riskier because
accepting cryptocurrency as payment is a bet that it’s going to continue
to increase.

“It’s hard to say whether the use of cryptocurrency to buy and sell
homes is a long-term trend or just a blip based on the recent spike in
value,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. “In some ways,
cryptocurrency investors have just won the lottery, and so it makes
perfect sense to buy their dream home. On the other side of the ‘coin’,
sellers probably wouldn’t accept lottery tickets as payment.”

Redfin (www.redfin.com)
is the next-generation real estate brokerage, combining its own
full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in
the consumer's favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the
country's #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to
consumers, including the Redfin
Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry's
lowest published error rate for listed homes. Homebuyers and sellers
enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real
estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more
than 80 major metro areas across the U.S. The company has closed more
than $50 billion in home sales.

For more information or to contact a local Redfin real estate agent,
visit www.redfin.com.
To learn about housing market trends and download data, visit the Redfin
Data Center. To be added to Redfin's press release distribution
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